MOTORSPORT: Ford fair dinkum about rallying?

It sounds as though Ford is getting serious about rallying again. It will have to if it wants to retain now five-time world rally champion Sebastien Ogier.

The Frenchman, the second most successful in World Rally Championship history (behind only his countryman Sebastien Loeb, winner of a record nine titles, consecutively), is due to arrive for the season-ending Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour next week still without an announcement of who he will be driving for next year.

He had hoped to decide between M-Sport, the British privateer outfit with which he has already won his fifth this year in a Ford Fiesta, and Citroen by early October but postponed it.

He even hinted recently at retirement, or perhaps at least a sabbatical, to spend more time with his family, now including a young child.

Having enjoyed the massive support of Volkswagen that yielded titles for him and co-driver Julien Ingrassia in the four previous seasons before that manufacturer’s pull-out at the end of last year, Ogier has made Ford factory support a condition of sticking with M-Sport next season.

He loves the team in all other respects but wants more than behind-the-scenes technical assistance for it from Ford to feel completely confident of battling and beating the factory teams of Hyundai, Toyota and Citroen again next year.

While neither the Blue Oval nor M-Sport principal Malcolm Wilson have given any indication of an imminent announcement, French website Autohebdo – which translates to Auto Weekly – reported this week that “according to our information, Ford is preparing to officially return to the WRC by supporting M-Sport”.

“This partnership would meet all the conditions to retain Sebastien Ogier,” it said.

The superstar of the modern WRC, with its more aggressive hot hatches this year, has described the negotiations as a “ping-pong exchange”.

The imminent withdrawal of the Ford factory-backed World Rallycross Championship team of Focus RSs driven by American Ken Block and Norwegian Andreas Bakkerud is being seen as freeing up money for the Blue Oval to commit to M-Sport to keep Ogier.

Wilson said weeks ago that he won’t have the resources to retain Ogier and Ingrassia unless Ford raises its commitment or M-Sport can get another major partner.

Ford withdrew its full support for world rallying campaigns in 2012 but M-Sport continued to field cars of its brand and this year amazingly has delivered the Blue Oval its first WRC manufacturer title for more than a decade.

Wilson said the season that climaxed by clinching the driver, co-driver and manufacturer titles at the recent Rally of Great Britain in Wales, where M-Sport’s Welsh driver Elfyn Evans and English co-driver Daniel Barritt scored their breakthrough WRC victory, had been “truly amazing”.

“We did open a few bottles of champagne, but the good stuff will have to wait until after Rally Australia [on November 16-19],” Wilson said.

“We’ve had all three drivers secure at least one victory this year, and a podium on every event [Estonian Ott Tanak is M-Sport’s third driver but is off to Toyota next year].

“We want to end on another high and secure [at least] another podium to complete our clean sweep.

“We won’t be letting standards slip.”

Ogier has won Rally Australia at half of his six starts – in 2013, ’14 and ’15. Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen, who won last year as a Volkswagen teammate of Ogier in that manufacturer’s finale to the WRC, returns this year as a Hyundai factory driver.

Another Hyundai driver, Belgian Thierry Neuville, is locked in a battle with M-Sport’s Tanak to be the season’s runner-up to Ogier.

Tanak said the stages at Coffs Harbour are “completely different to anything else we experience [in the WRC]”.

“Even the shadows in the forest are different,” he said.
Ogier said that, with less pressure on him having clinched his fifth straight title, “we can go to Rally Australia fully focused on enjoying the great stages that they have there”.

“If it’s dry our road position won’t make it easy, but we will try our best as always,” he said.

“It’s quite an intimate event – the locals really get behind the rally and we always receive a very warm welcome.

“If we could end the season with another strong result it really would be the perfect ending to an incredible year.”

Rallycross finales – in Queensland and South Africa
The year winds up for rallycross this weekend, with the final round of the new Australian championship at Stanthorpe in Queensland and the World RX finale in CapeTown, South Africa.

All-wheel-drive honours are to be decided at Stanthorpe’s Carnell Park Raceway, although Justin Dowel – the Australian rally champion in 2011 in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX – has a commanding 102-point lead in his 600-horsepower Hyundai i30.

Dowel’s 16-year-old son Troy, in a VW Polo, and Will Orders in a Mitsubishi Evo remain in contention, separated by just eight points, but are likely to be battling to be runner-up.

Mike Conway has already clinched the two-wheel-drive class in his Ford Escort Mark 2. The younger Dowel, second in a Ford Fiesta, and Scott Anderson, third in VW Polo, will be Conway’s main opposition while Aaron and Darren Windus will be absent due to a family commitment.

The younger has already contested a combined 44 races in the two classes this season, as well as spending time at Finland’s rallycross academy.

The series has attracted 45 drivers across AWD, 2WD and the Excel Cup, with 17 different winners of heat races.

The final round will be covered by the RXAus.com.au Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram accounts or via the hashtag #RXAus.

Sweden’s Johan Kristoffersson has already won the fourth World RX in a VW Polo, while his team boss, Norwegian Petter Solberg, champion the first two seasons, and Swede Mattias Ekstrom, last year’s champion, in an Audi S1 are only a point apart in the battle for runner-up honours at Cape Town’s 70-year-old Killarney International Raceway.

Ricciardo expects penalty, Webber rules Porsche out of F1
Daniel Ricciardo is expecting to take another grid penalty at the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix on Monday morning, Australian time, because of a likely change to a turbocharger component in his Red Bull car’s Renault power unit.

“We could maybe avoid it, but it’s probably going to put us at risk of not finishing,” said Ricciardo, the carsales.com.au global ambassador.

Power unit problems forced him out of both the Mexican and United States GPs last month after impressive starts.

The West Australian said overnight it was “likely” he would incur a grid penalty at Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit.

“If the team say you have 10 per cent chance of finishing the race with this [turbocharger] thing then I’ll want to change it,” he said.

“If it’s 50-50 I’ll take the risk.”

Little has been heard of a scheduled meeting early this week at which F1 owners Liberty Media were expected to outline more of their plans for the sport, including budget restraints and a revised formula for the distribution of the sport’s financial pie among the teams.

Those issues are sure to be in focus in Brazil, especially with former supremo, now cheeky ‘chairman emeritus’ Bernie Ecclestone, expected to be in the paddock for one of the few times this year.

Liberty’s proposals for engines beyond 2020 have enraged Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault, while they have been welcomed by independent manufacturers Cosworth and Illmor and Aston Martin is interested if the costs are affordable.

Porsche, which is quitting hybrid prototype sports car racing, has repeatedly been mentioned as another potential entrant as an F1 engine supplier.

However, Australia’s nine GP winner and later sports car world champion with Porsche, Mark Webber, now a global ambassador for the German marque, has said:

“Porsche in F1? It will not happen.”

GTs end at Highlands, high tension over Adelaide 500
The Australian Endurance Championship for GT cars ends this weekend with a 501km race at Tony Quinn’s Highlands Motorsport Park at Cromwell on New Zealand’s South Island.

There are four contenders for the title – Tim Miles and Jaxon Evans in an Audi R8 LMS, New Zealander Dominic Storey and Peter Hackett in a Mercedes-AMG GT3, and John Martin and Liam Talbot in a Porsche 911 GT3-R, while Fraser Ross is a chance too and is paired with McLaren’s Portuguese factory driver Alvaro Parente in a McLaren 650S GT3.

Miles and Evans lead by 76 points after winning the first two of the four rounds.

Storey and Hackett won the third round two weeks ago at Hampton Downs, now another Quinn circuit, on NZ’s North Island.

There are 240 points on offer this weekend and Kiwi folk hero and reigning Australian Supercars champion Shane Van Gisbergen is competing in a Quinn-owned McLaren 650S GT3 with NZ drifting superstar ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett.

A recent attempt by Supercars to take over the GT category from Quinn has stalled, with the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) not happy about the terms proposed.

Australian GT manager Ken Collier has since expressed “incredible disappointment” at the GTs not being on the program for next year’s Adelaide 500 at the start of March.

“Australian GT has been dismissed from the event in preference to the one-make Asian Audi R8 series,” Collier said.

“This is good for the local Audi teams [which will be able to compete], but the balance of our teams who compete with other marques such as Aston Martin, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Porsche will be excluded,” Collier said.

“It is very disappointing that the Adelaide 500 event prefer another, offshore, one-make series to the diversity of the local Australian GT competition, which has history stretching back decades.”

This weekend’s action at Highlands can be followed via Australian GT social media channels, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, or via the hashtag #AustralianGT.

Targa High Country a Close affair?
Targa High Country is on for the eighth year in north-east Victoria, with almost 140 cars and 18 closed-road tarmac stages over three days.

Today’s route is from Mt Buller to Euroa and back, tomorrow (Saturday) the event winds its way to Whitfield and back to Mt Buller after an afternoon street stage in Mansfield, while Sunday’s competition will be on the roads to and from Eildon.

The favourite in a 2017 Porsche GT3 is Matt Close, a former Targa Tasmania winner, especially as his fierce rival from that event, Tasmanian Jason White, is missing this weekend.

That may leave Alan Roe from Shepparton in a 2016 BMW M2 as Close’s main challenger, while evergreen Jim Richards, Peter Nunn and John Ireland are top-five prospects in two-wheel-drive Porsches if conditions are dry, as anticipated.